Tricks, Skis, and a Perfect Ending

Last night, Landon told me that he wanted to leave our house to go skiing by 8 am in order to get to the 12" plus fresh powder that had fallen over night. Me, being the nice wife that I am agreed to this. I was kinda excited to get the fresh powder too, but sleep is something that I take very very very seriously so it was still a big compromise.

And here is where the tricks began...

Landon, the sly guy that he is, decided to trick me into getting up at 6:30 am instead of 7:30 am. How did he do it? Well, he set the alarm for what I thought was 7:30. When the alarm went off this morning, he got up and went into our guest bedroom, took my phone and his with him. When I got up, I found him waiting in there. He suggested that I take a shower first because I take longer. Me, being the gullible girl that I am, got in the shower without a second thought. Well, I get down into the kitchen and I read the clock: IT WAS 6:50!!!! Oh, was I pissed :) Kinda. It was kinda cute how sly he was and I was out of my norm on this one too. Usually, I would've raced upstairs and yanked Landon out of the shower by his ear just to let him know how grumpy I was about this little trick he had played on me. I guess you could say that it was Landon's lucky lucky day.

Landon's efforts were rewarded when we got up there just in time to wait in the gondola line for 20 minutes. The line was extra long today, but it wasn't people we were waiting

for, we were waiting for the dang gondola to open! But, had we gotten there any later, we would've have had to wait for a long line of people. So, once again Landon's tricks were paying off.

Here we are waiting in the gondola line:

Skis:

This year, I am trying out demos of all different kinds of skis with plans of buying my favorite model once the season is done. I have wanted to buy skis for a while, but never have had the guts to make the $1000-2500 investment and did not want to make such an investment without a broad knowledge base of different kinds of skis. Also, once the season is over, 2011 models will be cheaper :) With the 12 plus inches of new powder, I tried fat

skis.

These were them:

I liked them a lot in the powder, although they were tough

to carve on over the groomed and pack trails as the day progressed. The most interesting part of these skis is when I fell into waist-high powder and lost one! This was not the kind of circumstances that I wanted to pay for a pair of skis (because I lost one).

Thankfully, after waiting for Landon to take two lifts and hike 1/2 mile over to where we were skiing, he found it in under 5 minutes. Prayers do really work! Here is where we hiked over to and skied at:

This was some of the best and most adventurous skiing that I have ever done and if I had to loose a ski in the midst of it all, it was well worth it.

Landon had me take some pictures of him going down some fresh powder and here are the shots I was able to get:

In this picture, Landon is the second highest person hiking up the ridge.

Here is me on the top of the 1/2 mile hike. From here you could see Brighton (another ski resort in a different canyon) and part of the Wasatch Front. I was on top of the world!

After 6 straight hours of skiing, I was pooped (to say the least) and thankfully, Landon was too.

We made it back home and decided that fixing dinner tonight would be too much of a task after all that had been done today. So the perfect ending to a very early, perfect powder day was eating at Sawadee, a Thai place that has been a longtime favorite of ours.

LF Christmas Party

This is long over due especially with the last post being so dramatic and all, but I was in the mood to post. So here is what the Lunatic Fringe party looked like this year...

We all partied at Sapa sushi bar and grill and I had to post a picture of how cool this place is. The atmosphere is really great and so is the food.

Here is most of who I work with at Parley's. I don't think that I could work at any other location. These people are my family. They have seen me through thick and thin. Pre and post Germany and everything in between.

Zach and I were the only brave ones to go up and get seconds at our table. Not only that, but others were so not going back up there that they made us get them more. So not only were we back for seconds, but we looked like pigs doing it. Having enough food for four between the two of us.

This is not me, but I wish it was me because of her awesome sequin dress that she had on. It was my favorite dress of the night and it might be my favorite dress of 2010. It had shoulder pads and everything!! I know, you are thinking "shoulder pads? is Jen crazy?" No, I am not. If you had seen this dress, you would understand.

This is my best friend/twin. I love this girl. Thanks for always being there for me, Casie :)

And last but not least, here is the best part of the party. Here is Chelsea and Spencer. It might be confusing as to what name goes to who, but these two always seem to stick out and are completely unpredictable. In real life, Spencer does wear scarves, and leopard stockings, and moccasins, but never all at the same time. And never have I seen him in a dress, but I think he did that to counter-part his love, Chelsea. These two are some of the most generous and nicest friends I have.

Overall, the LF party turned out to be a success. Can't wait for next year!